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Wednesday, 23 October 2013

The day after, I remembered about a curious incident that
happened in Malta in 1939. It was documented in National Geographic but
no one knows what really happened.

A curious book bought from someone documenting the event of Miss Lois Jessup

There is an account that
in the 1940s a British embassy worker, Miss Lois Jessup, went on a tour of the
Hypogeum and persuaded a guide to let her explore a 3 ft. square
"burial chamber" next to the floor of the lowest room in the last
[3rd] sub-level. She claims that after squeezing through this chamber she came
into a large room; where she was standing there was a large cliff with a steep
drop and the floor of the cavern could not be seen. Across the cavern there was
a small ledge with an opening in the wall. According to Ms. Jessup, a number of
"humanoid beings" that were covered in white hair and hunched over
came out of this opening. They raised their palms in her direction and a large
gust of wind filled the cavern, extinguishing the light of her candle. She then
claimed that she felt something brush past her. When she went back to the
Hypogeum on another occasion, she was told no such tour guide had ever worked
on the site.

Sometime after Miss
Jessup's first visit, a group of school children and their teacher visited the
Hypogeum on an outing and entered the same burial chamber, which then collapsed
while they were inside. Search parties could not conduct a thorough search for
the children or their teacher due to the cave-in. The parents of the children
claimed that, for weeks, they could hear the voices of their young children
coming from under the ground in several parts of the island.According to National Geographic's Ancient
X-Files there are no local
newspaper reports or accounts from residents about the missing children, making
it more likely this was an invented story.

It
was asserted that for weeks afterwards the wailing and screaming of children
was heard underground in different parts of the island, but no one could locate
the sources of the cries.Click this link to read more:Malta TemplesHypogeumDisclaimer: I don't own the pictures above.

Thursday, 3 October 2013

I love to meditate by the sea, sometimes I share my thoughts and longings with it too.

I remember once i decided to go and walk on the beach, it was early summer.

I walked by the edge where the sand was moist so that I would leave my footprints and every now and then I look back and look at the pattern.

There were young children playing, building sand castles and gathering tiny pebbles to embellish their constructions. Their enthusiastic laughter mingled with cries from the seagulls, they were so happy.

I stopped to feel the rising sun on my shoulders and the soft breeze and also to smell the sea. Tiny waves were kissing my toes as if they were extended fingers of the sea inviting me to play with them.

I picked up a pebble on the sand and it seemed it knew my hand. The rhythm of my breathing matched the rhythm of the incoming waves...I felt one with the sea and the pebble and the sun.

It was all a song of creation...a song of Being-ness.

I bent down and wrote on the soft sand, "I am in love with you" as if talking to the sea.

Like a little child, I skimmed the pebble on the sea, like an acknowledgment to the sea...or was it a way of communicating with it?

After some time, oblivious of the passing time, I noticed the waves gaining more momentum...due to the rising sun, I suppose.

When I came back from my pleasant reverie, I noticed that the waves have crumbled the castles and that now my writing on the sand said only, "I am...". I could not help but smile, looked at the sea and sent a loving imaginary hug.

I turned back to return home...all my footprints were erased by the sea. I felt so much love that my eyes watered and a tear drop fell in the sea, carried away by the waves mingling with the ocean.

Method:
- I followed "Basic Double Crochet hat with instructions on how to make a hat a great fit every time" (on her page, scroll down for free pdf file Bobwilson123)/ "Basic Beanie" (youtube video) for the crown, with a bit of modification.
Instead of chaining and joining the chain to form a circle at the beginning, I made a magic circle ("Crochet Geek" on youtube has an excellent library of these basic crochet technique) and made the needed stitches for the first row.
Here I made:
Row 1: 12 sc on the magic circle, ss to first stitch, 1 sc, ch 1 (instead of ch 3, do not count as stitch)
Row 2: increase row, 2 dc on each sc (total 24 dc), ss, 1 sc, ch 1
Row 3: *1 dc on first stitch, 2 dc on second stitch* repeat *to* (total 36 dc), ss, 1sc, ch 1
Row 4: *1 dc on first stitch, 1 dc on second stitch, 2 dc on third stitch* repeat *to*(total 48 dc), ss, 1sc, ch 1
Row 5: *1dc on first stitch, 1 dc on second stitch, 1 dc on third stitch, 2 dc on fourth stitch* repeat *to* (total 60 dc), ss, 1sc, ch 1
I continued the increasing pattern until Row 15 (total 180 dc), after ss, 1sc, ch 1, I start the cross stitch pattern. This stitch pattern will only work with even numbered stitches.

- The pattern I used was the "Cross Stitch Hat" (on her page, scroll down for free pdf file Bobwilson123)/ "Cross Stitch Hat" (youtube video).
Here I made the cross stitch pattern from Row 16 to Row 31.
Since this is for the side of the head, no increase is made within this section, you should still end up with the same number of stitches you started with after you stop the increase round, i.e. I ended up with 180 stitches.

- The contrasting colour is added after you do the first fpdc at the start of the brim row.
Row 32: *main colour fpdc on first stitch, ss to join contrasting colour fpdc on second stitch* repeat *to*, take both yarn when ss, 1sc, ch 1
Row 33: *main colour bpdc on first stitch, contrasting colour bpdc on second stitch* repeat *to*, take both yarn when ss, 1sc, ch 1
I did 4 sets of repeat Row 32 to Row 33, do as many as you wish, depending on how wide you want the brim.

This is an extra large beanie and I used a fairly thin ply yarn hence the many rows and stitches. If you are using an chunkier yarn, e.g. 8 ply onwards, you only need fewer stitches and rows. The first row (the magic ring row) may only need 6 to 10 stitches.

Feel free to use this pattern but please refer it back to my url site.